Gifts From the Past
by Ratumo
Summary: Many, many years ago, Yuma Tsukumo was murdered. Then, he became a murderer. AU, many possible ships.


**A/N**: Re-upload of this fic! Sorry that it was taken down. I'll upload the second chapter in a little bit and then start writing chapter two. Sorry if it's confusing!

* * *

It hadn't even reached Tuesday yet, let alone Friday, and so his clock was running out ridiculously slowly.

Yuma Tsukumo's clock, that is. He reached into his pocket and held out the small contraption, dried blood at the sides, the fake gold already chipping off, held it up to his face, roman numerals in all their unnecessary glory. Or at least he thought they were unnecessary. But really, he didn't need that constant reminder to not get caught. He went through initiation, you know, got the tricks of the hand? Yeah, he learned that shit already. Didn't need to learn it again.

But apparently, his parents disagreed. Why listen to them, though? They were the ones that abandoned him. Not to resent them, he actually didn't, he was actually tremendously excited to finally see them again. But not like this. Never like this.

Suddenly, the roman numerals told an entirely different story. Why did he hate those numbers? Oh, fuck, he needs to stop forgetting. He got out that familiar phone, the one he kept on him at all times, and checked the notes. More permanent than regular old paper.

Right. IV.

And what the bastard did to Shark...and Kaito, and Haruto...and III, right? And even himself? Of course, he hurt Yuma! Aah...Yuma tried remembering, so many times...what was his real name? Because he could have sworn that "IV" was sure as hell not a name. Notes, notes...he has to check his notes. Every day. So he doesn't forget and slip back into -

Fuck.

He needs to stop.

IV wasn't a bad person. At his core, he _was not_a bad person.

Even thinking about it can drive him up the wall. Not that it was particularly terrible, being that way...but he knew that they would lock him back up again, and honestly, he would, too. He knew that he would remember the horrible things he's done. And he didn't want to remember. All of the terrible things that his friends had done to him, over his years of traveling through these damned worlds and all of the blood-chilling acts that he himself had done to them. He couldn't tell which was worse, in all honesty, but he wasn't about to dwell long enough to find out.

He ran a hand through his unusually straight hair. It was annoying; having to straighten it. But that was the human mind. If there was even such a small change, they would believe that he was a completely different person from their Yuma, even if all that really changed was his hair style and his clothing, now plain. He had a dark red shirt, a black hoodie draped over his head. And his pants were just a dumb dark blue color, but his belt still held his deck.

The deck he barely used anymore. But it helped him. Sometimes.

Occasionally.

He folded his phone and walked off. They gave him that, his parents did, as a celebration gift to his acceptance into the organization. Right then, all that he was assigned to was recruiting kids and redirecting them to the higher-ups. But to do that, he had to travel.

Through...different dimensions. And it was disturbing, some of the things that he saw. The shit went from light-hearted joking between his friends to the brutal fucking destruction of the shit-based so-called "heart" of Heartland. And all of the people surrounding it. Their deaths...he saw them all, at least once. And sometimes by his own hands.

Funny, wasn't it? No - not funny, not to him.

His D-gazer was unsafe to use for notes. And even if it wasn't, Yuma never got to finally figuring out how to work the damn thing past dueling and calling others. Knocking him out of his thoughts, he realized where he was. The school. His school, haha, no, not his anymore. The UTR Academy was his school now. UTR, for Utility Training Requisite. And he didn't get it, but it was a matter of the, "don't ask, don't tell," variety. For once, he was oddly okay with that.

His job was dumb.

Everyone in every world has multiple versions of themselves, in different dimensions. And these people protect these dimensions – make sure that nothing bad happens, that nobody crosses them or damages them. He was, of course, one of them. They don't have much of a specific name; sometimes, they call themselves, "Ghurkians," which is "Commanders," in some alien language. And others simply call each other "Ykoff's," which, if he specifically remembers his Schlivetican classes, means, "Travelers." And still others call themselves a name that outrages him to this very day.

Gods.

They aren't Gods. Not at all. They are, what he personally called, Protectors. Protectors of the universe. And so that was his alias, the name they use to locate each other specifically. He was the Protector. Sometimes, he wonders what the reason was for the Servant to call himself such a thing. Ironic, for such a higher-up. And then he remembers why. The reason that he had figured out on his own. Servant was interesting, a very melancholy boss, at best, emotionless, at worst. Which went directly against his counterparts, the ones that Yuma had met through his travels. And always, he keeps wishing to meet that one person.

Kotori.

Everyone has a certain version of themselves. One. Only one. They were lucky to find his, is what they said, but he doubts it. He plans to move higher up, get out of this shithole of a job and finally do something else. Even regular old paperwork beat having to go through years and years of just...seeing himself and his friends and enemies get hurt, cry, get better, laugh, and repeat. It was draining. Emotional swing set. But for now, it can't be helped.

Uh – _why_ it can't be helped is _none of your business,_by the way. He just…didn't want to bother himself to go back to the headquarters right exactly then.

Ahem, that one version, right. Everyone has one. It's that one version that can see the others, the one that remembers all other worlds, the combination of all of them. The one that has experienced everything and anything. He has to go out and look for these people in his friends. And he's waiting for Kotori. He's waiting for her version, so he doesn't have to do this alone, so she can help him and he can help her. He briefly contemplates what she would choose as a code name. But he decided to let his curiosity hang; the time would come, soon enough. Just like the time came for him. He winced inwardly. He remembered when they found him, and when he found himself. When his head started feeling like it would explode, and when he finally felt the terrible memories fluttering back to him.

When they found him, complete and ready, they locked him up for two weeks. He only remembers seeing his closed-off room once, and he distinctly recalled the walls not being purely white as his parents had informed him.

But he had seen those other dimensions. He had seen the worst of the worst happen to her. And he could pinpoint certain things that he, himself had done to her. Well, no, not him. His counterparts. It was surprising, or, a better description would be disturbing, how much his alternate versions could differ from each other. He guess that anything can happen if certain things happen to you.

Yuma had these amazing traits. He once jotted all of them down, observing his counterparts from afar. He could not fully condense his list, but he could cut it a bit short. Which was what he had to do, in order for it to fit on his phone. The notes took forever to save. He wasn't kidding, or stroking his own ego! But really, he had a lot of good traits. He was happy, and could always make people happy. And, from overhearing certain conversations, he evidently had a, "power like the sun." He wasn't unattractive. Not be any means. No, actually, he was quite cute. Which, in some cases, may turn out to be a bad thing. But he's not focused on that right now. He's generally nice, though he obviously has moments of being a total dick. He admits that.

And he has a confidence level to take down the whole of the universe. Normally. Usually.

But the list of his bad aspects is longer.

In the time that he had observed his counterparts, he realized the true darkness that lied within his soul. And it was too late to go back. No amount of therapy (that his parents attempted to make him go through) would ever push those memories far back enough.

He's murdered. Committed mass-murder, and, at an alarming count of sixty-three times that he had kept track of, suicide. He'd raped, maimed, mutilated, and gone insane. At one point or another, Yuma Tsukumo had every crime in the world. And well, that was bad but impressive. That wasn't even starting on his personality. He was a liar. He lied, so much, about his feelings. And he couldn't take responsibility for his own actions. Why was that? Why couldn't he just simply admit to what he needed to? Okay, sometimes, he could...but not as often as you'd think a normal person would be able to. He was the Protector. Yet, he couldn't protect Astral back then, who was his number one priority. Did he even want to protect Astral...? His heart pounded, feeling ready to burst out of his chest, and he realized that he was standing awkwardly outside of his former-school's building, simply staring off into nothing.

He felt his face burn in embarrassment at the strange looks his former classmates were giving him. Same old, same old, was it not? And what alias did he go by, now? Yuyuko? Sounded like a fucking pansy girl's name. It probably was, and his parent's were just fucking with him. Or maybe it was Servant's idea, or worse, Snare's idea. And he couldn't even fathom it if Child was behind it. Alas, he had to continue on with the dumb name.

He laughed aloud. These titles were even dumber names than Yuyuko. By far.

What the hell would he do?

Eighteen minutes until the bell would ring, and he didn't have any means of getting a uniform. He got bored in this world, obviously, and decided upon coming, why the hell not? He wasn't getting paid this week, due to terrible cutbacks of the recent blow in their systems. Damned Haruto. Yuma loved the kid, but hey, how the fuck annoying is it when someone takes out your pay, no matter how much you like them? He absentmindedly rolled his eyes, then stopped on a boy. Someone kind of unfamiliar. Which was rare, at least for Yuma. He sighed. The application to the school was quick, and he hadn't the money to buy a uniform. He slowly inched over to the retreating boy and followed him behind the building.

Once there, Yuma slammed his elbow straight into the boy's head, knocking him out. Quickly, he switched their clothes.

Comfortable. It reminded him of his old uniform. He sighed at the boy and headed off. Hey, at least the kid didn't see him.

What was his first class again? Ah, right, the bell hadn't rung. But still, he should have known where to go first. After even having checked his phone for notes, he realized that he, in fact, had forgotten where everything was. He really did not wish to interact with others, not now. This would be problematic.

* * *

"_**Hey..."**_

_Red eyes gleamed over the boy in his hands, pushed up against the cage wall, with a new light and sudden concern. Why wouldn't he react to anything? What happened to him? He shook the boy's coat, holding him by the collar and pulling him in closer. The boy's lifeless eyes glazed over as his head lolled forward. Yuma realized again who this boy was as he ran his fingers through Kaito's hair to pull his head back. His hands went back to Kaito's throat._

_**"Hey, wake up..."**_

_His fingers, stained with blood, started to check for any sign of life. Why wasn't he moving? Wasn't he the new addition to the order? The organization? He should have been moving..._

_He wasn't moving._

_Yuma threw Kaito's broken body across the cage, slamming him into the metal bars, as he went to the girl crying silently in the corner. Once again, he pounced._

* * *

His clock went by days, and this was the first. Monday.

If he hadn't found a fellow possible Protector by Friday, he was forced to remember everything from the other time lines. The clock was a suppressor, something that kept his mind intact as he was searching. But it didn't last long, and it was old. He would need to get a new one very soon. But not until he found Kotori. He couldn't go back to the headquarters empty-handed, without someone with him. So, he simply carved his way through these new dimensions and hoped that the clock wouldn't break.

But that wasn't all the pocket watch was. It also measured the time that he could spend in a world without it falling apart. His memories would be pushed down, but his abilities were repressed, as well. He had no Numbers. Well, none that he could use. They were still trapped within the Key around his neck, along with his memories. The clock and the Key…they were connected. They had to be. They held his memories, his Numbers, his ability to "hop" dimensions. If either was destroyed, he would lose them all and be trapped in wherever he was.

And be mortal. Which wasn't a good thing.

As he was now, Yuma could still remember vague bits and pieces of other worlds. The terrifying details, he knew were there and lingering, but he couldn't pinpoint them exactly. Not that he_ tried_to remember them. Why would he? He had more important things to attend to. Yuma placed the bathroom pass upon the counter and walked across the stalls, careful to see that nobody else was in there with him. He flipped out his phone and clicked into his notes.

_Sea is –_

Oh. He forgot. Using their titles could be dangerous. Who knows what powers there are lurking around? Sighing, he cleared the message and started over.

_Ryoga Kamishiro is no longer a bully. After the duel. Astral has already appeared. Date is somewhere in the spring. Can't tell if he has met Kaito yet._

All of his notes were like that. Unfinished sentences and random jotting down of important details. Yuma didn't want to go back to the classroom. Nobody that he truly cared for was there. Nobody there was a potential Protector. He would have seen it if they were. Not that it mattered. In fact, he had no classes with the people of his past until much later. And once that arrived, he would have to act differently. But how? All of his previous aliases had some distinct personality to them. But that's all they were. Just aliases.

Ah, didn't matter. He flipped through the rest of his notes. A little reminder couldn't hurt. He smiled as he came across that note, the one to remind him of who was already in the organization, to make sure that he could focus on possible new recruits, and for the most part ignore the ones listed. The ones he had found already. Ryoga, IV, III, Byron, Fuuya, and Todoroki. An odd combination, but who was he to complain? They all came at random. He couldn't choose who he found; he just did his job and brought them back to the headquarters. But these past few years, he hadn't been able to find a person. Not a single one.

Actually, these past few years had been quite strange ones.

The dimensions grew increasingly different. Er, correction, the origins grew increasingly different. They all ended in different ways, but most began similarly. But recently, huge modifications had been made to the laws of the universe. One particularly odd timeline, his father was suddenly there. His mother? Well...she had apparently died in some sort of car accident. But now that he was out of it, such a world was in irrelevance. Tension had died down, and this world seemed relatively normal.

So far.

Very few dimensions were truly normal.

* * *

_**"Why?" **__He asked quietly to the girl below him, running a red finger over the quickly-healing gash on her stomach. __**"Why won't you just die...?"**_

_Kotori coughed up blood and suddenly, she melted out of the world, out of the cage. Nobody was left. He had to wait now, until his landlord was out of this world, to be greeted by the newest additions. Every time he entered the new world, the people there entered his cage as they were. Kotori was his newest recruit. Yuma knew that, but the Protector didn't. His landlord had no idea of the fact that she was right there, right in that school. But the memories wouldn't come back until the opening in the timeline got to her._

_He couldn't tell him._

_He didn't want to._

_Suddenly, he let out a laugh. Yes, let him suffer; possibly once again see the deaths of his "friends" and maybe his family. Wouldn't that be amazing? Wouldn't it? Wouldn't he enjoy that? His Protector would enjoy it ever so much, and then he would bring her back and have her travel with him and they would be happy, together. Astral out of the way, suppressed by the clock._

_The clock._

_The damned clock was what kept him confined to his cage. It was what kept the Numbers locked within the Key, never to return, and it was what kept Astral in there with him. Outside of the cage._

_That was all he was now. Astral was his warden._

* * *

Yuma grinned and lightly pushed his forehead against the wall before taking the pass in his hand and stuffing the phone back into his pocket. He walked slowly back to his class, making it just when the bell decided to ring. How convenient. Years of traveling had given him a strange, older look, even though he hadn't aged a day since he was found. He was still thirteen, but he could have passed as fourteen. It would give him more of an excuse to spend time with his Proctor. Former Proctor.

Ryoga - Sea - _Shark_.

He had already found Ryoga, years ago. They were partners. Now, though, he'd moved up and left Yuma as the Recruiter to the Proctor, taking care of the ones Yuma had found. Fuck, once he got back...Sea would be pissed and for more reason than one.

His chosen title was "the Sea." Yuma thought it was fitting.

The next class was...probably something to do with math. He didn't pay much attention. He probably knew it already. Or not. He didn't care. The teacher asked the class a question and called on someone, he thinks, or maybe -

"Yuyuko Tsuruya," The teacher repeated, finally breaking through to him. His head shot up. "The answer? I believed this to be a fitting way to welcome you into our school, but if you do not understand the material, I could always give you after school lessons."

His cheeks flared for a moment before he looked to the side. "I don't know the answer." He wasn't paying attention, but he wouldn't know anyways.

"Takashi Todoroki," The teacher glanced over to the blue-haired boy with his hand up in the air, a few rows away from him. Clearly, he gave the answer, but what it was, Yuma couldn't hear. He glanced over and for a moment, their eyes met. A second showed confusion and shock in Takashi's eyes, but it quickly dissipated. He had no reason to think that far ahead. Yuma smiled lightly. People looked similar sometimes. That was probably what the boy was thinking.

Yuma found it odd that he'd had a class with him.

Dueling period was next and he _had_to keep an eye on everyone. Interacting with others wouldn't be useful. Everyone else in the world was unimportant. Not that he didn't care about them, he simply...didn't know them well. And only once before has he brought back a person that he had not known well.

The bell rung. At least now, he could get out and perhaps even duel. Haha, he probably wouldn't do that well. How long had it been since he dueled? Besides, no Astral, no Numbers, he was nearly bound to lose. Standing up and picking up his things, he noted Takashi had already walked out. He pulled out his phone, hiding it under the table to jot down a note. Suddenly, Yuma felt a hand on his shoulder and jumped.

"Yuyuko...Tsuruya, was it?" A girl asked shyly.

She looked innocent and cute, blue hair with an orange ribbon tied in it. She wore a blue D-gazer and duel disk, sporting a friendly grin. She looked a bit older than him, perhaps close to graduating to high school, and he could have sworn that she was in the World Duel Carnival in at least one of the worlds he was in. What was her name, again? He never bothered to ask, or even talk to her. And this was the first time for her to talk to him. It made no sense for her to just approach him like that.

He nodded after a few moments, realizing that she had asked him a question. This girl might be a problem. He couldn't make new friends, not now, focusing so intently on finding everyone. Her grin seemed to spread wider, if that were possible. "You're new here, right?" He nodded again. "I'm Misato Hayashi, Head of the Publishing club!" She said proudly. "I could help you around the school, if you wanted."

He glanced at her out of the corner of his eye. She was keeping him from finding his friends, but he didn't want to be rude. "Sorry," He started sheepishly. "It's nice to meet you, but I really have to go. Duel period is my favorite - I mean, it _was_- at my old school."

Misato's smile faltered, but regained full force. "That's alright. You like to duel? You don't even have a D-gazer, or a duel disk."

"Oh...no, I like to just...stay on the sidelines," He laughed loudly. Wow, he really needed to get out of this girl's sight.

She giggled in understanding. "Ah, I see," She turned around. "Still, I could show you to the back exit. That's where we duel."

She wasn't going to let up, was she? He sighed inwardly in exasperation. Yuma smiled back. "I...that would be nice." Obviously, she wouldn't let up, but having someone on his side shouldn't be too much of a bad thing, right? Actually, it had to be a good idea, right? He was at least relieved. It was better than her hating him. Another person hating him was certainly not something that he needed.

Really. If there was a club filled with all of the people that hated him, or at least _should_hate him, it would probably occupy the entire structure of the damn Astral World. Not that he was complaining. They had every right to. He would probably be captain of the club, in fact.

Captain Yuma. Didn't have as much of a ring to it as he thought it would. Back to the drawing board, as they say.

"...Yuyuko?" Misato asked, standing in the doorway. He hadn't moved in his train of thought, and he snapped back to reality immediately. Quickly, he snatched his belongings and hurried out to dueling period. Usually, he wouldn't be feeling anxious, but when something like an entirely new person was added to his potential friend list, he knew that something was up. And he knew that he had to keep his guard up.

He couldn't bear remembering what happened the last time he had not been prepared for the worst.

* * *

_Yuma stared at the girl in front of him. It was different. She was different. Why wasn't she...inside of his cage? Why the hell was she outside? Was she...was she working with Astral? He clenched his fists and seethed without realization. Fear was barely present in her eyes. She walked forward to the metal bars._

_He lunged, grabbing for her hair, and slammed her head against the cage wall._  
_Muffled cursing escaped her lips and she shook off the wound, the blood in her blue hair and orange ribbon. Only people in the organization could have been outside of the Key, but she was...there. She was in the world. Why would someone from the organization affiliate themselves with _his_ job?_

_Yuma Tsukumo was the only Recruiter in his line of the organization._

_**"Who the hell are you?"**_


End file.
